Thursday, September 2, 2010

Existence

This has bothered me for quite some time now and so it's only appropriate to put it down somewhere in words; after of course eating a few of my friends' heads over this!

I somehow just cannot find the point in everybody (except a few maybe whom I'm yet to meet) being so obsessed with having kids! I'm not talking about how many or anything but just the concept of producing life; rather reproducing. And the 'continuing the race' argument is just too stale in my opinion.

So what if the mighty human race just comes to an end one day! It would, in fact, be much better for all the other millions of species on this planet! We anyway keep discussing and debating on how we have basically screwed up the 'balance of nature' and how we are now struggling pathetically to reverse those effects. Our understanding of the universe, from the smallest atom to the largest starts and everything in between and beyond has only shown us how insignificant our very existence is.

However, we all, and of course I am not an exception, are selfish beings and so we want to live our lives as best as we possibly can. But picture this - if all the present humans on the planet stop having kids, just live their lives (in the best possible way) and then die, after some time our species would be extinct. Now where's the flaw in this? Or rather what is the problem if there's just no 'next generation'? And the argument of being selfish in the sense that 'you just want to live and enjoy and not let others (ie the future generations) enjoy' is inherently flawed because there is no 'future generation' until it is in existence, and so basically how can you be selfish with respect to someone that does not exist?!

It should be kept in mind that I'm not a misanthrope or the like, I just feel we are going nowhere by simply having more and more people being produced without any real meaning to our existence. I'm neither being naive nor over-philosophical by implying something like 'we don't know the meaning or purpose of our existence' and hence we should all stop living. On the contrary, what is the harm in all the existing people living in peace and then letting it go...

We exist, therefore, we protect existence.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting point of view. Thought and equation provoking. Will get back to you with both soon.

Payal said...

hmmm..its kind of weird. but i feel u should better leave it on nature or the supernatural power or god.. whatever you believe in. everything is planned my dear.. its not in your hands anyways. there might be some purpose behind life, some purpose of existence. Isn't it? And everything has been planned and written in the puranas millions of years ago. we cant challenge nature..

Unknown said...

it actually does make sense to me... as in where are we really getting with all this... even if we do know everything about every existing thing on this planet what next.. why cant humans just LIVE... human nature...

greySith said...

I tried to leave a comment, and then it got too long (maybe the shadow of Anu is upon me!).

Here's a full response- posted on me blog.
http://greysith.blogspot.com/2010/09/procreation.html

Tanvi Nidgalkar said...

If you are talking about helping the nature regain it's balance then It would make more sense to let life continue.Hence there is someone to take responsibility of all the damage done by the earlier generations..that would be more like a selfless act!!

mikami said...

"I just feel we are going nowhere by simply having more and more people being produced without any real meaning to our existence." If you think about it, you are actually close to that old question by Camus. If you really believe that there's no meaning to our existence, then how can you possibly go on breathing ? In that case, shouldn't you kill yourself ? Why the convenient allowance to let the living live but not produce future human beings ? The answer is this : Even if you do not see any real "philosophical meaning" to your life now, you still experience the joy of living. Eg: I'm sure a beautiful photograph you create makes you feel pure unadulterated happiness. So your life is an end in itself. You feel joy and so perhaps, you may feel that urge to create someone else who can feel that joy of living too. So you have a baby who will also, you hope, hear a piece by Mozart, eat a chocolate, smell the mud before the rains, see the stars and perhaps also appreciate a beautiful photograph. "A baby is an end itself." I read this in some book recently. Makes sense to me. PS: An interesting book - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus.

trekkergirl said...

micami has already covered a point i wanted to raise.("So your life is an end in itself.")

We live because it gives us joy.I,you or most ppl here are yet to have kids.But judging by our parents,it'd be safe to believe that the kid becomes their ultimate priority in life..n why?because nothing makes them happier than seeing their kids happy.

the concept that humans reproduce so as to carry forward their genes is valid in the scientific or evolutionary sense.Of course,it'd be foolish to say that thats the reason we have been doing it because we have reached such refined levels of intelligence that we can now exercise our choice if we dont want to reproduce.

i am just trying to say that there must be immense happiness that parents derive by raising kids.We wont know it unless we reach that stage.

My mother once told me this story about her.That throughout her pregnancy,she wasn't sure if she'd develop feelings for the kid she'll give birth to..because she,by nature,had never been a kid lover or nething akin to that.But she says her thought process did change when i was born.

the point im trying to raise is that its emotions and feelings we are talking about..so may be we(us collegians) have just not reached that stage in our life where we too want kids.So lets just wait for a few years before we conclude that reproduction is meaningless...

May be its just ur personal feelings you are talking about...they might or might not change.i(and im sure there are many like me)certainly visualize a future with kids n me indulging in them precisely because i see my parents doing it n becoming happy in the process...You dotn need to have a meaning or purpose for doing something if that makes you happy.I am sure you'd agree on that!

(sorry for the lengthy comment..but then my AW skills were never great :P)

Pratim said...

Hey... Its nice to c ur putting up good posts regularly...!!
Keep it up...